CW: fears of bigotry - I would feel absolutely horrible if I made anyone feel uncomfortable. I have no intention of minimizing the genuine trauma and injustice of oppressive systems. I beg of you not to read this if you might be insulted, and I apologize in advance for any potential harm my honesty might cause. I really hope it doesn’t. Also CW for anxiety about worthlessness/stupidity and lying/exaggerating diagnosis. Hey everyone. I want to start by saying that, if you’re only logging on for a few minutes, you don’t need to prioritize my post. I know many folks on here are in crisis and don’t have much of a support system, and I believe they need and deserve responses before I do. (I have a therapist and supportive family.) But I’ve been afraid to post on here for a few months now, and I’m finally doing it, though I don’t really know why, because it feels futile + wrong. I’m so terrified that I’m a worthless person in every way. I feel like I’m a disgusting bigot. I have horrible racist thoughts and I know I’m not sufficiently disturbed by them. I was diagnosed with OCD, but I feel like I’m just using this as an excuse when I am, in truth, an unforgivable monster. I’ve had therapists tell me that, if I was truly who I think and fear I am, I wouldn’t be so disturbed by my thoughts, but I just don’t believe that’s true, even if I wish it were. I know that these beliefs are evil because of the environment I grew up in, but wanting to be anti-oppressive doesn’t necessarily mean one is; anybody can hold bigoted beliefs, even if they don’t like them, and I feel I must pay attention to them and suffer as a result. I’m currently on leave from college and I know I’m going to have to go back because that’s what my parents want, but I truly feel I am a horrible person and I don’t deserve success or happiness. I feel I should suffer in perpetuity and be isolated from society; otherwise, I may forget how diabolical I truly am. I feel terrified that I’m exaggerating my suffering; that I’m not depressed or anxious enough and that I’m too easily getting through the day, which a good person with these thoughts or a truly mentally ill person never could, but that I’m not even afraid enough of being a liar. I need to be a good person and do the right thing, but I’m being forced into treatment, which I know is a privilege; however, I fear it will desensitize me from my horribleness, thereby making me even worse. I’ve tried so hard to believe I’m not this awful person, because I desperately don’t want to be, but I can’t delude myself when the evidence is overwhelming. I know that if these were just intrusive thoughts, I wouldn’t have the right ones sometimes and the wrong ones in other situations; I wouldn’t be able to so easily move past them, and there wouldn’t be exceptions to my horrible beliefs. I also know that I am a worthless person in other ways. I am so stupid, incompetent, and irresponsible. I don’t even know how to navigate getting around my city despite being 20, I lack common sense and basic knowledge - I am a horrible human being and I feel like I lied to myself for my whole life.

This might contain triggering content, but I'm also wondering if others have dealt with this similar thought, and if so, how to deal with it? Overall, I've been doing so well these past few days. I'm able to eat again, which I hadn't been able to do because of how much anxiety I'd been experiencing. I'm spending time around loved ones and not just rotting in my room, and I've been able to wake up without immediately being bombarded by intrusive thoughts. When things first got really bad, I'd wake my mom up every night for reassurance, but I haven't done that in a while either. I'm really proud of myself, but there's still this nagging thought in my mind... While looking through others posts on here, hoping to find advice that'd fit my situation, I ended up making things worse. Someone mentioned how they had a fear that they'd purposely search for illegal content (related to POCD). I panicked, and "what ifs" flooded my thoughts. "What if the intrusive thoughts affect who I am as a person, and I do that?" I'm terrified that I'll search for those things, which I know means I wouldn't do it. But then, another person on here said they'd actually looked for those things, and that freaked me out even more. Does that mean it's possible for that to happen to me? I don't want to do that, but I keep having intrusive thoughts surrounding it. I've been doing so well these past few days. I'm just... stuck. I don't know what to do. I've spoken with other people who have the same fears, but how do I manage this? It's not something I've even thought about before seeing those posts. I've been practicing accepting the uncertainty, but I'm really struggling with this one. I hate this. This morning, I woke up, and the intrusive thoughts were back. It's just disheartening.

**TMI Warning: This post is very personal and might be uncomfortable for some.** I’m feeling panicked and need to get this out. I have intrusive thoughts that make me question my morals, especially about consent. I have a CNC preference (consent to non-consent), but I feel so conflicted because I know how horrifying and heartbreaking real non-consensual acts are. The thought of anyone suffering in that way is so awful, yet I get thoughts that feel like I’m justifying the real thing—the immoral thing. Sometimes, I feel like I have to focus hard just to truly condemn it, and that terrifies me. It’s hard to separate these thoughts from who I am, and I’m scared it means something terrible about me. I feel so much shame for having a CNC preference. I know it’s rooted in consent, but I feel like I’ve never had certainty that I fully condemn the real thing. I’m scared that deep down, I might think it’s all the same.

So, I know my capacity to get fixated on things. And it's normally something that's relatively remote but, my latest issue is really getting to me and I was wondering if people have any advice. I'm avoiding getting too into specifics, as I don't want this to get reassurance-y but, in essence.. I came to the realisation recently that people who I'd been "friends" (feels like the wrong term now) when I was younger were not very nice people, and normalized a lot of very unpleasant behaviour towards other members of the group. They really normalized it, sold themselves as figures of authority, as older and more responsible and grown-up than others, and looking back, they acted horribly. And coming to this realisation, that I'd been manipulated into just accepting their behaviour has just... broken me. My OCD has latched onto it and I can't stop feeling irreversibly tainted by it. I've talked to others about it, and they've reassured me, told me it's not a big deal and that I hold myself to too high a standard, but none of that sticks. I feel better for a bit, then think 'Maybe when you told them you were skewing it to make yourself look better' or 'Did you leave out a crucial detail'. I keep ruminating over and over, trying to remember exactly how everything played out, trying to figure out if I fed into the behaviour, if I did something bad myself (because y'know, I feel like I was accepting of it at the time, so what does it say about my own values?). I know I need to stop doing all this if I want to improve, but then some part of me keeps saying 'So, you're just going to let yourself off the hook then?' Normally, I can rationalize my own fears to some degree, assure myself something won't happen, but the realness of the situation, and the fact I only came to understand the reality of it because the thought had been bothering me means it feels so much more all-encompassing. I know confessing in itself is a compulsion, but I keep feeling that if I'm not I'm somehow concealing what I 'really am' from others around me, and any positive interactions are me deceiving them in some way. I feel like I can't enjoy anything in life right now, and a good part of me feels I should not enjoy it ever again. If anybody has any advice on it, I'm all ears. Or even hearing if you relate to these feelings, I might appreciate the solidarity at least.